The following is prepared by the Kean Miller LLP Utilities Regulation team on important topics affecting consumers of electrical power in Louisiana. For more information, please contact us at client_services…

The Internal Revenue Service (the “Service”) released a Private Letter Ruling (“PLR”) earlier this year addressing private business use of a mixed-use output facility and whether tax-exempt bonds could be used to finance improvements to the facility. The Issuer, which is a political subdivision of a state, owns electric generation, transmission …

The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clearing the way for the City of Lafayette to issue bonds to finance its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTP) Project. As described by the Court, FTTH technology delivers telecommunications services via fiber optic cables to every home and business in the covered area. In contrast, a more traditional system delivers services to a distant point, with the remaining distance to each home and business being covered by technically inferior and bandwidth-limiting copper (telephone) wires. The decision ends eighteen months of litigation, starting after the citizens of Lafayette voted 62% to 38% in a July 16, 2005 election to issue up to $125 million in bonds for the Project. Project opponents filing suit to block the bond issuance included the incumbent cable and telephone companies, as well as two Lafayette residents. For additional news articles relating to the decision, see http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070223/NEWS01/702230321/1002 and http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/6008236.html

On November 17, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Standards of Conduct as applied to interstate natural gas pipelines. These Standards of Conduct, which are set forth in Order No. 2004 and codified at 18 CFR Part 358, govern the relationship between an interstate natural gas pipeline and various affiliates. The Court found that FERC’s effort to expand the pre-existing standards of conduct beyond relationships between an interstate natural gas pipeline and its marketing affiliates was not supported by record evidence. It is not clear if or when the Commission will revisit Order 2004 and how it will attempt to address the infirmities cited by the Court. It is worth noting that the current Chairman of the Commission, Joseph Kelliher, issued a strong dissent when Order 2004 was originally enacted and argued in favor of keeping the Standards of Conduct applicable only to marketing affiliates of interstate pipelines.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has affirmed an order of the Louisiana Public Service Commission establishing a state universal service fee for telecommunications service providers operating in the state. T-Mobile, a wireless provider operating in Louisiana, appealed the LPSC’s order, arguing that the USF fee constituted a tax and, thus, the LPSC lacked …

Governor Kathleen Blanco has reportedly vetoed the controversial Competitive Cable and Video Services Act, House Bill 699. There has been significant disagreement between BellSouth, the proponent of the bill, cable providers, who appeared to turn neutral as to its passage after the bill was amended, and Parish presidents and mayors, who urged …

To say there has been consolidation in the telecom market over the last decade would obviously be an understatement. Competitive telecom companies, which entered the market by the hundreds after passage of the federal Telecommunications Act, have merged with each other (or have been acquired) as a means of survival or market penetration. The (then) giants of the telecom world have also consolidated into mega-regional communications companies. SBC acquired Pacific Telesis, Southern New England Telephone, Ameritech (which itself acquired Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Ohio Bell and Wisconsin Bell), and most recently AT&T. The new AT&T became the largest telecom company in the U.S. Now it is proposing to acquire BellSouth, currently the third largest telecom company in the U.S. (For more information on the history of telecom mergers, visit http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/armis/carrier_filing_history/COSA_History/)

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